Birds on ‘Roids in Early Cretaceous China
Well, not really but apparently it was cool to be Ostrich-like back then (120 million years ago). A huge, beaked, toothless omnivorous dinosaur was discovered recently during an excavation at the southern part of the Gobi Desert.
Project leader Peter Makovicky was puzzled at first because he thought the dinosaur was taller than it should be (it stood 10 feet at the hip) so he wasn’t able to identify it. The dino relic has 6-inch hand claws and would’ve weighed in at a whopping 1,400 pounds.
The two-legged discovery has been dubbed Bieshanlong grandis.
It’s a shame he wasn’t unearthed in time for our Chinasaurs exhibit (coming this May), although who knows what the Ostriches over at the Zoo would’ve thought about the new guy stealing all their thunder!
